Dot21 Real-Time Systems - Radar Displays

Advanced Radar Displays

Dot21 is developing a new generation of reconfigurable radar displays. Our new radar displays will provide the Navy revolutionary benefits:

Displaying contact, track, and gate data for ANY radar system
Defining a comprehensive, open interface to radar systems for data display
Using the same tools for real-time display and off-line analysis
Allowing customization of the display for different radars and missions

Dot21's radar displays are based on proven Java technology, data analysis and reduction tools, and DDS (Data Distribution Service) publish-subscribe middleware.

Support for ANY radar system

Multiple Radar Support for the Dot21 Radar Display

Conceptually, the technical approach is simple. DDS "topics" are created for the radar display for radar data, status, and control messages. (DDS topics define the data structures used to communicate with the radar using publish-subscribe middleware). These messages are defined by IDL constructs and guarantee that the message data types adhere to a common and well defined implementation.

PowerTool depiction of a radar data "Topic"

There are three basic options for interfacing the radar with the display application:

For legacy radar systems, an adaptation layer is written which interfaces to the legacy radar, acquires the radar data using the existing interfaces and formats, and "publishes" the radar data using the DDS publish-subscribe middleware
New radar systems which are OACE compliant and provide radar data using the data "topics" defined by the display are plug-and-play.
For new radar systems which are OACE (Open Architecture Computing Environment) compliant and use publish-subscribe middleware, but use different data "topics", we are developing a configuration tool that will AUTOMATICALLY create a DDS adaptation layer that will map the radar's topics to the display's topics…without requiring the user to write a single line of code.

Automatic Generation of DDS Adaptation Layer

Our configuration PowerTool provides a graphical environment for mapping the new radar's data topics to the topics used by the Dot21 radar display. This environment is based on the IDL data descriptions and uses technology from our data analysis and reduction tools.

Using the same tools for real-time display and off-line analysis

Dot21 introduced the ability to record publish-subscribe middleware data in real-time with our Message Oriented Middleware Tools. With this technology, you can record data while your radar is running and then use this data for analysis, system integration, and testing. You have two options:

Replay the data as it came from the actual radar system
Use Dot21's tools to examine and filter the data off-line

Either way, the same visualization tools and displays are used, all driven from the IDL descriptions of the radar data!

Allowing customization of the display for different radars and missions

Since the components of our display are based on Java beans, new display capabilities can be added without rewriting the display software. For example, compare our basic PPI (Plan-Position Indicator) display with the same display configured for the AN/SPS-48E Radar. Both of these displays use the same software, but additional Java beans are configured in the AN/SPS-48E display to add more functions. The only difference between these two displays is the contents of a configuration file.

(click image for enlarged screenshot)

This technology is not limited to displaying radar contact data. The same radar display software, with the addition of some new Java beans, can also support troubleshooting.

(click image for enlarged screenshot)

New Java beans can be written to support different radars and mission requirements. Since the Java Beans are logically independent, standalone software components, which are free to discover and rendezvous with other components and services, logically related groups of beans can be added to the display. These new beans will integrate themselves with the display software based upon their individual requirements.